Category: Teen Topics
Hi all!
What kinds of notetakers do you guys use in school? What have your experiences been with using the various notetakers in school. I have a pac-mate BX420, and I love it. I wouldn't trade it in for anything in the world. I use it for all of my school related work, and of course for wrecreational stuff too. What do your friends think of your notetakers, how do they react to the noise in class? Have they ever accused you of cheating on tests because you have everything right in front of you? Share your thoughts.
Kolby
I started using my Braille Note last year and I love it, especially the Book Reader. It's very versatile and has a lot of very usefull features, far more than the Braille Lite I used to use. I prefer Notetakers with Braille displays myself. And i like the thumb keys on the Braille Note. They make it easier to read.
yeah I agree. I use the Braille Note too, and I love it. I always use the braille display; I hate the using the speech. It's so annoying! It's funny, because sometimes in class, I have to reset it, and when it makes that noise, like the whole class is usually like "What the hell was that?" And, I'm always like embarrased, because I always have to explain what it was and all about the Braille Note and crap and it sucks. lol Yeah, my friends think it's awesome! There always pressing the delete key when I'm writing something just to piss me off. But that's just because I was stupid enough to show them where the delete key is. lol Sometimes in class like if I'm bord or something, I'll like write my friend a note, and like the teacher won't even notice, because none of the teachers can read the braille display, so they think I'm just taking notes or doing my work and I'm really not. It's great! And then I just do all my work when I get home. lol
Personal I don't like using nor do I use any notetakers. Give me a laptop any time. It does everything a note taker does and a lot more and it's hell of a lot cheaper. Gess, I mean these days I can almost do anything I want with my mobile phone, and it's hell of a lot smaller than any laptop or a note taker and if you're that worried about being slow because of writing on the phone you can even buy a blootooth keyboard, which are quite small too.
I use a braille lite m20. Granted, it's obsolete technology now, I still like it. I'd like a BN more, but don't have the money for that right now. I love being able to read books or write whatever I feel like when in a borring lecture. As far as what others think of it, well, not much anymore. I mean everyone has PDA's and stuff like that now. When I was in highschool though, I used to get a lot of comments on how cool it was.
I really like my BrailleNote. I used to read in class quite often. Of course, the teachers never realized it. lol
I use paper and pencil! sometimes a led pencil and sometimes the kind I need to sharpen. or sometimes I stick with a pen. works very well for me
Freedom Scientific notetakersare awesome because they're small and have a long battery life, but batteries have a low life expectancy and FS charges you anarm and a leg to get them fixed. Laptops have less battery life and are bigger and take longer to boot up. Standby features don't work with JFW. However, you can read PDF documents, PPT presentations, Word docs, email/web, ETC cheaper than a specialized notetaker, provided you've already got the screenreading software.
That's why I like the Braille Note. My Braille Lit'es batery was so unreliable.
I have a BrailleNote as well and love it. I use my computer to surf the Net cuz it's easier, but my BrailleNote is by far my prefrence for school work, writing in my journal and stories, reading ,etc. Yay for notetakers!
I use the braille note as well. I use it for reading listening to music school work and the like. I prefer the braille note much more then i did my braille lite m 20. For one thing the braille note's word processor is far more better then that of the braille lite and i like the context sensitive help on the braille note as well.
Oh ya i forgot to mention the music part! Ysyayay for the BN and music!
Don't laugh, but, I still use my BNS 640 for quick jottings.
My first notetaker ever was a BN, and so far it's my only, but I know of plent of people still using BNS'. That's cool.
MMHM. I play some of the free BNS games and have occasional fun with the free BASIC environment, besides keeping it by the phone and taking it with me. People unfamiliar with this kind of technology are still impressed by something as old-school as the BNS640. My husband affectionately refers to my unit as Junior.
I wish the BrailleNote had games!
There are no games for the later FS note takers? Hmm. Perhaps, it's just that nobody's gotten around to programming them, yet. Have programming tools (E. G. C function libraries or ide's) for the Braille Note become available yet?Regards,Dave
I have a bn. standard. but i think I'm eighty percent sure I'm upgrading to a PK. hahaha I bet most of you already know that but o well!
I have an awesome notetaker... can use messengers, go on the net, check email run any program a pc does; it's my laptop. I think the pacmate would be pretty easy to code games for since there is Windows CE stuff for games (Game Library or something) but the bn doesn't really use CE like that (more propriatary than the pacmate from what I've seen) so I don't know how possible it is to do full fledged audiogames under it.
James
If someone ever, ever makes games fo the BN< let me know. My peers think it's ridiculous that I have a notetaker I can't even play games on in class lol. Not that I would, I need to pay attention or I'll flunk! And ALison is now officially upgrading ot a PK, I'm so jealous. i haven't even touched one!
I have an mpower it has games a radio a memo feature and a lot more please pm me or email me if you wannt more.
Braille Lite M40. I use it for tests and things like that. If I use a computer people can cheat and read my answers. Just not sure how easy that would be.
I love my braille note but preffer my laptop for sure. It's so mutch easier to format things with and using internet is so mutch easier on the laptop.
i have a braille note, and braille notes do have games, they're not audio games, but if you get the MPower they have games, and then i use a laptop for recreation, my friends love my braille note, everyone does, they love it when i t excersizes, this year everyone hated our science class so they'd ask me to give them a finger massage, with the braille display, and it would get passed around the classroom, it was really funny, and right nnw i'm in the process of teaching my friend tiffany braille, its really fun, and i'm excited to pass notes with her, yay, lol
I use a Braillenote. The MPower has text adventure games. Downside is that they require you to think too much and you can't bluff your way out of not paying attention. As far as the BNS and Braille Lite, I hated giving up on thos notetakers, but they wre becomming reliably unreliable as they aged. I created my share of word lists in hangman for other people as braille lessons, and did a really men april fool's joke on someone.
Lou
I use a Bn clasic. vertion 5.1. i want to get it upgraded to an M-power, Jary coons lets me use one of the BN m-popowers for school sinse the bn clasics mess up alot. but i had to tern it in for the summer, i have all so used a Bn QT M-power witch is a BN that has a keyboard, and i have all so used a PK. i personaly dont like the PK because its hella hard to type on it. i use my BN for my journal writings, and school werks, sometimes if i m board i will right a litle story on it. BN's are nice, but i would be more for them if they had a mesinger system on them, or you could download a meisnger system for them, but i soooo cant wait untill i get my m-powwer! yyyayayaya.. well guess thats it for now.
There are sites that you can access messengers with a braille note. Look in the Geek section. For me, a laptop will do everything a notetaker does, and more. It is so much cheaper, and I don't have to worry about sending it in for 6 weeks if it breaks or if I need a battery replacement.
I use a Dell Latitude D620, or a laptop for those not in the know. Say what you will about your note takers, none of you can say that your note taker is truly on the latest technology. Likewise, none of you can do hardware replacements yourself, which you can do with a laptop. Yeah, it's waity, but I'll take it. Plus, mine could be a lot worse, *coughtoshibacozmiocough*.
I use a braille note mpower right now but I have used the erliare versonions. I love my brsaille note to the point wheare somebody would have to kill me before I gave it up. When I was in highg school bored out of my mind I would just be sitting there working on a story I was writing, doing work for another subject that was far more interesting, reading a book, or writing in my journal. I also like the braille note because the braille display lets you keep things private. None of my teachers knew braille so it was easy to sit there doing something else and make them think I was working.
I've got a pacmate. I used to have a braille lite back in high school. Dang I miss it! My braille lite was better than the pac mate. I hated giving it up!
Hi,
The first notetaker that I ever had was a BrailleLite 2000. Then I kept having to send it in, and it was a pain and then it was outdated and stuff like that. So I went to this lions' club and they got me a BrailleNote mPower BT, running keysoft 6.2 at the moment. I love the BrailleNote!!! Go Humanware!!! The only things that I wish they'd do is to make it so that OGG vorbis files can play on the BrailleNote, and I also wish that Irc clients, like mIrc, could work. That'd be so cool!!!!!! Irc clients are the best!!! Ok, I'll shut up now. Hahaha.
I use BrailleNote mPower QT running 7.5 build 28 (also known as 7.5.28, dont ask why)
I have been asked from time to time if I cheat on tests, one person actually thought I cheated but I obviously don't. And one classmate in science last year was like, "you've got the answers! why bother studying!"
It was kinda funny, and when I am not taking notes I just kind of listen to what the teacher says etc. I really don't do anything I'm not supposed to do with my bn--during class, that is.--
I also use the Braille+ which is so cool because when you have headphones in it nobody knows what you're doing.
And about the excersise the braille display in the mPower it's so cool. Once i did it to give it, well, excersise and this dude was like, "cool! that's what that braille pop dot thingy does!"
It was kind of weird but... Now i'm making no sense. lol.
Yeah, I use a braille note, and people like to come over and poke it! I yell at them, but too late! Lmao! Anyways, sometimes my speech turns on, and the whole class laughing. Lol! I don't use the speech except to see if the word sounds write. I can spell account like acount and I would turn on the speech low, and check really quickly! I love it!! Sometimes I read in class, so... It's cool. I write in class too, but... Um, lets just say in order to get my creative juice flowing I'd need silence! Well, Hmmmmmmmm, people ask about it all the time, and everyone asks me.
"ooo, can you write my name?"
I do, and with my guidance they feel the braille display. I kind of instruct them!
I'm currently a PacMate user, but I've used everything from the Braille'n'speak (oldschool), to the BN classic. I want to try out the MPower and the Braille Plus.
The M.power is ausome! It has games! They are so fun!
agree with the last post. But I don't like the games because they require to much thinking and they take up a lot of space on the flash disk.
Lol! I just plot in random directions. Lmao! then I get trapped and don't know what the hell to do.
LOL. I have done that with some of my friends' BrailleNotes that have keysoft 7 and higher. It's very hard to get out of those traps. LOL.
Uhh, a lot of space? So like 70k is a lot? Lmao
I also use BraillePlus. Nice it is
I don't think that that is a lot. What is BraillPplus?
Well go to tech.aph.org, click on braille plus mobile manager and find out.
I use an Mpower now, and I haven't had any problems with it. The one thing I don't like though is that when you plug anything into the USB port, it takes a minute to recognize, which can get annoying. When I was in elementary school, I used to have a Braille Lite 40, and I still have it somewhere actually, but after awhile it started to crash like all the time, the flash would get corrupted and stuff like that, so I stopped using it. I tried out a Braille Plus, and it was cool, but there were a couple things I didn't like about it. First of all, it still has a lot of bugs. Second of all, moving around on the Internet wasn't the easiest thing in the world. But if they keep working on it, it looks very promising. It's small, has enough space to hold all my music (which I don't know of any other note taker that can do that) and has wireless internet without a card. I never found it necessary to get a wireless card for my Braille Note, because that would be expensive, and why bother when my computer can do the same thing? I really liked the Braille Plus, I just hope they fix some of the bugs with it, and it would be awesome.
I really like my Mpower 7.5! I used a braille light, (i hated it it kept crashing), and a BN Classic, (which I still have since I just got my Mpower in january.) I like having 2 BN'S for when 1 crashes lol.
Yeah, that's a good idea, I would use my Braille Lite in an emergency too if I had to.
I know this topic hasn't been posted too since 2008, but what the hell.
I use a braillenote MPower and have been since February 2007. It was originally purchased for school work, but now I use it all the time for writing notes in class to checking email and browsing the web. Yes, the MPower does have it's glitches, but it's still a pretty good unit and it meets my requirements, through i'm hoping to upgrade to a braillenote Apex if possible.
Yeah, I use a 7.5 now, and still have no clue how to play the games.
I've completed some of the games (with a bit of help from the walkthrough documents). However, there are a few of the games that i've got stuck on and given up with.
Those things...? I couldn't find them... Well... I didn't try very hard either.
I have a BrailleNote version 7.5 build 31, which personally suuuuuuuuuuuucks!
My Mac, on the other hand rocks!
Wow this topic is old! lol
I just wanted to say I'm getting the apex, and I think we should have a topic about how people that have it like itl... I'm to lazy at the moment to set one up lol gonna go eat food :)
Seeya!
i've got a mpower. smiles.love the games they are awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!1
I use a braillenote apex, and it seems fine. It doesn't have all the fancy stuff like the pacmate with youtube and all that but it's fine with me. My classmates don't react to the noise, since I turn the speech off and just use the 32 cell braille display, and the qwerty keyboard. The reason I didn't get a pacmate is just because it seemed to lock up and was too confusing for my ten year old brain to handle.
same with me, I also read or write e-mails when the teachers aren't looking, but then usualy they find out by the smug expression on my face when they ask what I've been doing. My vi teacher can read braille but my aide can't so she can't see what I'm doing. I don't have internet access on my BN in school, so I can't browse the web in school but oh well, at least I have a whole library on my BN, so I'm not bored. Fore some reason I'd rather have a full page of braille then keeping to push advance when I want the next line. I know that auto advance exists, but it just seems too fast, and sometimes I have to reread the line I was reading and the braille display is already on the next one. I'm glad I have it though It's pretty useful. The speech can get annoying, but it's useful if you need it to pronounce in a different language it's sometimes useful in that way.
Well, when it comes out, I'll be using the orion. It'll have an 18-cell braille display, running on android, GPS and OCR capabilities, uses the Ivona TTS engine, has 30GB of hard disk space built in, and is probably smaller than the braille note.
Old topic, but quite interesting. I have the Braille Plus, and really like it, but unfortunatelyy, I think it is in the process of dying. I like the idea of the Orion when it comes out. I recently bought a Netbook. I think for me, it is a good sollution, although I miss the non-bootup time of solid state devices, and the almost instantaneous search time for the Braille Plus. I have JAWSon this netbook, but I also have NVDA, and the Jarte free word processor along with Firefox and Thunderbird. All these programs are free. I wanted to see what I could do on the cheap. While this isn't perfect, I can't argue with the price.
Lou
Hello? You can play inform text adventure games under KeySoft 7 and later. I use a BN MPower bt16 and I use it for everything. BTW, where do you guys go to download your music? Gotta get me some of that!
Oh, I don't have a bookshare acount, so where else do you guys go to get your books?
I use the braillenote apex, and like it a lot, though I am not as attached as I use to. I use to be seriously glued to it. but when I moved from the m'power to the apex, I kind of learn to step away and that it was okay to not use it as much and that I didn't have to be attached, but some of the features are very nice like the gps, and now that I have something else the media center I don't use so much. but e-mails are cool and so is the chat.
Now that I have a Braille display for it, my iPod Touch is a real win as a notetaker when it comes to being in a Coast Guard briefing or meeting or something. And nobody notices, I can pull the little display out of my uniform pocket and just use it. It's got a belt clip, but by regulation we can't have anything on the belt that isn't a regulation squawk box or something that relates to duty. But anyway I had a PAC Mate for many years and could do everything including running a store with it, since it had Excel and other office programs which I needed to keep books and do the whole works.
I'm glad in school you kids got this stuff because what I had was a slate, and you can't go near as fast with one of those as typing it in.